The Laundry Room
by Exploded Pen
Summary: Sequel to What Went Wrong. At Malcolm's funeral his daughter compares in to that of a laundry room and speaks of the lie her father presented.....


**000 Disclaimer, if I owned this it would only be in an alternate reality 000 This is the sequel to What Went Wrong so it's a good idea to read that first otherwise you'll think I deserve to be in a padded room and in a straight jacket. This is told from the POV of his daughter Lucy. The poem is by Rudyard Kipling. So, read on 000**

"_You will hear the beat of a horse's feet,_

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And the swish of a skirt in the dew,_

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Steadily cantering through_

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The misty solitudes,_

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As though they perfectly knew_

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The old lost road through the woods..._

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But there is no road through the woods."_

It was an odd choice of poem to read at a funeral, I didn't honestly expect anyone to understand what I meant by it. To say I even understood my own reasoning would be a lie, it was like I read it and I instantly knew it described my father.

My father isn't………wasn't a perfect man no matter how much he liked to project that image he probably had more faults than most people.

Well, I say that but I don't mean it.

My father. The great Malcolm Reed. Master of the armoury and a hero to many. Those are titles that many people have credited him with over his lifetime.

But Malcolm Reed was just a name, the person behind the name died along time ago. I never knew him, but I knew of him.

When I was younger people would tell me what a special daddy I had and how he had saved countless people. I would nod and agree, when I was younger my daddy was my hero. He chased away the monsters in the dark, held me when I was sick, taught me that custard powder was actually and explosive substance.

But he was never real.

As I got older I would delude myself that he was himself around me, that he would show who he really was around me because he couldn't pretend to be someone he'd never encountered before. He couldn't pretend to be my father because he had nothing to base it on.

But he was never real.

Sometimes I'd wake in the night and go down to the living room to find him, it was then he'd have that lost look in his eyes and he'd be murmuring something over and over.

When I was 18 I became tired of the façade he presented and left home. The man was a hypocrite, always teaching me that I should always be myself when he had no idea who he was anymore.

As I got older I began to think more and more about my father. I realised that he'd lost himself a long time ago, before he'd met my mother, before he joined Starfleet, before he'd even finished sixth form at school. He'd been living lies that would keep him safe. Lies that would either keep people away or draw them near, he had an effortless charm on some occasions when previously he'd been stuck on the outside, socially awkward and keeping people at arms length with a mask of cool calm professionalism.

Now, at his funeral, I can't help but hate these people. They're telling me they are sorry for my loss. Telling me what a great man my father was. Stumbling over the past tense and casting fearful glances at me as if I'll burst into sobs.

What's worse is the stories they tell of him.

The stories they tell could be about totally different people. Others who are listening look confused but brush it off easily as they tell their own story of him.

I can't take the lies of my father's life being unravelled before my very eyes. This is private to him, he had his reasons for doing it and as much as I hated him for it his lies were all he knew. His lies were all he had left to hold onto.

The group looked at me expectantly during the funeral, expecting me to cry. I won't cry. I can't cry.

Probably my father's only true friend seems to understand, Trip, the ever charming southern gentleman. I get the feeling he knew my father played parts in life, never actually showing himself. I get the feeling he knew my father was lost, that my father never knew who he was.

He doesn't seem to expect me to cry, he isn't crying himself. When the group gathered round telling their stories he came and led me away, as if he knew himself.

"It's nothing but a laundry room," I'd said to him quietly. "They're all airing my father's dirty laundry in public. This is nothing but a laundry room."

He just nodded in agreement.

He understood, without understanding. He knew about my father, or at least in the darkest corners of his mind he suspected but didn't want to believe. He didn't want to believe that Malcolm Reed was simply a figment of a lost man's life.

I didn't want to talk to him so I left him standing alone, leaning against the wall. I went outside to say my own private goodbye to my father.

I don't want to say goodbye to a façade.

But I suppose that even in the midst of this…………laundry room I have one consoling thought.

Maybe now when he has nothing left, my father can finally remember who he really was. The little boy who lost his way and was hidden behind lies. But in death he has no lies to hide behind. He just has himself. I only hope there's something left.

Now, I have return to the laundry room. I have to return to the laundry room. That's all that's left. A laundry room.

**000 Please review, it's a bit weird I know but please review 000**


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